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Agenda April 11, 2001 Minutes April 11, 2001MEETING: LEGAL COMMITTEE LEGAL COMMITTEE LEGAL COMMITTEE The meeting was called to order by 8:30 a.m. by Chairman Holte. Members Present: Jim Leschensky, Marilyn Holte, Tom Bembnister, and Bill Darby. Others Present: Shirley Ring, Kay Stelzner, Rick Patrie, Vicky Woolever, and Rachel Anderson. Recorder: Lisa Merrell. Leschensky made a motion to approve the minutes of the March 14, 2001 meeting as presented. Darby seconded the motion. Carried. KAY STELZNER Annual Report Stelzner passed out her 2000 annual report (copy on file). They collected $32,000 in fees, and the county's share of that was just under $19,000. They also recoup Guardian ad Litem fees on the annual WATS reviews from everyone they possibly can. That is for everyone under protective placement. They have to assign a Guardian ad Litem to go and talk to the person. If the person in the nursing home gets Medical Assistance to help pay for their stay, they can request Economic Support to reimburse them for the Guardian ad Litem fee and Medical Assistance will pay the extra $75 that month. They got over $10,500 last year on that, which was above what they projected. Not all of the budget was used last year because the Register in Probate left in October, so not all of her salary was paid out. On page two, she broke down the types of files they have, the types of probate and the mental commitments, and showed the increase or decrease in each category. The reason that adoptions and termination of parental rights increased is because last year was the first year they did those, they took it over from the Juvenile Intake Office. Mental commitments were up slightly. Stelzner noted they had 49 juvenile mental commitments. Darby asked if there had been an increase in juveniles versus adults. Stelzner stated no, actually last year there were more adults percentage-wise for an increase. Stelzner noted in each guardianship where there is a guardian of the estate, if there is more than $1,000 that the person has to account for, they have to do an accounting by April 15th. Videoconferencing Update Stelzner stated they have put the wiring in so there is fiber optic wiring into the Jail, it is all the way through the Jail, and it is in the activity room. Hopefully by the end of this week or next week they will be able to communicate with the Jail. As soon as they get that, they will be able to start playing with it to make sure there are no bugs in it and after that, they can start doing bail bond hearings. Lisa Merrell is working on getting the ISDN lines hooked up so they can call outside the building. Holte suggested having a videoconferencing demonstration for the County Board soon. Woolever stated their office is working on how they will be handling bail bonds, it will probably be a wait and see, but they plan on sending one of their people over to the Jail to have prisoners sign their bail bonds and take their portable filing stamp. It will be something new for them. Woolever stated that to not have the prisoners standing in the hallway with the general public will be a safety issue. RACHEL ANDERSON BJIS Update Anderson stated training is going on across the hall. It has been going really well. She has had very positive comments from people in her office about how much they are learning. Some of the features they are getting with the new operating system are really nice. This morning they are installing a scanner, which was paid for by the State of Wisconsin. It will be helpful in terms of using photos and other documents they need to scan in. The new computers are here for the attorneys and they are all up and working as far as the desktop units. Rick Patrie has been working with BJIS on the change. Patrie stated they are going through the programs that they are retaining to make sure they work before BJIS leaves. Holte asked, if they do have problems, how long does it take them to respond? Anderson stated BJIS can take over their computer from Madison and assist them. They actually have three people up for the District Attorney Support office that they can access via e-mail or an 800 number. Patrie stated the server for the information they are gathering is down in the computer room. What they enter into their computer goes to the server and then down to the state level. There is a tape backup unit on it that the IS office will backup on a daily basis. Anderson stated in addition to the in-person training, they are providing them all with manuals that are a very good resource for later on. Staff Update Anderson stated Heather Steinke is leaving their office and her last day is April 27th. She is the worthless check coordinator, and in conjunction with that, she was doing some thinking about their office resources in general and how best they can use their personnel. One of the things she concluded is they have a specialized prosecutor with a paralegal, but she would like to match up an attorney with a secretary, that way the work is divided up. That would include the check prosecution. What she sees happening now is a certain percentage of the check coordinator's time was going to be for check prosecution and then she was going to be a backup, but the way the checks are backing up, it is basically monopolizing that person's time. What she would like to do with this new idea is all three secretaries would have check functions. She has some copies of the draft job description that would merge the Legal Secretary II with the Check Coordinator position. Anderson stated there would still be a report that needs to be run once a month that would take 20 minutes or so, so one of the people would have that responsibility. Holte asked if this would be a cross training situation. Anderson stated yes, and she thought it would be better for accountability for work product too, because it is one on one supervision. Ring stated basically what they are doing is adding #14 on the second page to everyone's job description. The other items were already in the other job descriptions. Anderson stated with the timing, Steinke can train the other two secretaries in the office before she leaves and then when the new person comes in, the two secretaries can train the new person. She also asked Steinke to come up with a training manual before she leaves. Darby made a motion to approve the draft job description for the Legal Secretary II, subject to changes. Bembnister seconded the motion. Carried. Holte stated they will give final approval next month after they have seen the whole thing. Bembnister asked, under training and experience, does she have any trouble getting people applying with four years experience in a legal office. Anderson stated there hasn't been a problem in the past. Contracted Services Fee Anderson stated they do have some money budgeted for this expense, it is $4,500 and there are various expenses they take out of that for transcripts and things, but what she wanted to bring before this committee is she will be reviewing a case that is a complicated financial fraud perpetrated by one person against numerous people. She believes it would be best for their office to handle the prosecution and not to get a specialized prosecutor, but she would like to hire a CPA to assist her in putting together the factual information. It looks like they will have sufficient funds to cover it. Leschensky stated Anderson should do whatever she needs to do. Bembnister stated that is the purpose of the fund. Office Update Anderson stated the Tom Kinealy trial was brought up a little bit last month by the Clerk of Courts. That was pretty significant in terms of travel. They had approximately $1,500 that came out for hotel bills, renting a conference room and they had other expenses with D.A. Bitney coming here to prep witnesses: mileage, food, which was about $600-700. Travel may be something she comes back to the committee for some help on. Anderson stated they are continuing to have regular office meetings and things are going well. The computer training will be a big benefit. Anderson stated as far as the prosecutors go, Wade Newell is now doing sexual assault prosecution with female victims 13 and above. Holte asked if there would be more funding for that position. Anderson stated as much as they can tell, it looks like it will continue. The grant manager has been very excited about their program in general plus she has worked with Newell when he was in Jefferson County. The people in Madison in general would like to see this continue. They have heard some very positive comments, it is not a guarantee but they should hopefully know pretty soon about a definitive yes. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT Holte stated Karen Hepfler called to say she wasn't able to attend today's meeting. She did mention to her that the check writer that they purchased was just kind of sitting there and they thought they had an opportunity to sell it to IS. Patrie stated the payroll system is going to a new design for their payroll checks. Right now they use a 3 1/2" high check, and they have gone to an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper now. Their current check signer will not handle that size form, so the Auditor and Treasurer asked him to look into check signers. He talked to one of the representatives from the company that the County Clerk buys their mail equipment from and asked if they have check signers. He was sent a proposal on one and in the meantime he talked to Woolever and they said they had a check signer that they used a few years ago and haven't been using since the state took over child support. Patrie stated the proposal came back from the company and it was the same model and same vendor that the Clerk of Courts had, and it was almost $2,500, so he talked to Hepfler about it and he will pull it out next week and run some blank paper through it and see if it works. They will probably have to buy some signing stamps for it, but if they can use it, they will probably save about $2,000. Patrie stated they have information on Law Day on the Web site, and he thinks they might add a button that says current county events. Woolever stated they are having a meeting tomorrow at 1 p.m. on Law Day. They sent out a news flash to all the local newspapers so they are getting some good publicity on it. Holte stated Kay Gerrits called her and wanted her to sign for a vehicle order. She had worked with Marv Schneider and she talked to Kathy Bernier in the Clerk's Office too. She has a van on order, and Gerrits told her it is coming in within budget. Holte passed out a notice from the Family Support Center on Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April. The committee inspected the bills. Darby made a motion to approve the bills as presented. Leschensky seconded the motion. Carried. The next meeting was scheduled for May 9, 2001 at 8:30 a.m. Darby made a motion to adjourn. Leschensky seconded the motion. Carried. The meeting was adjourned at 9:40 a.m. |
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